Fast Food

Football stadium hot dogs seem as low-tech as life gets. Leave it to Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft, to think otherwise. Last year, the team Allen owns, the Seattle Seahawks, became the first NFL club to incorporate radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology into its concession sales. The Seahawks' RFID system was designed to speed sales and cut lines that all too frequently snake around stadium snack barskeeping fans away from the action, not to mention the food. The system has also helped drive sales up.

RFID has long proved its efficiency for collecting tolls, recording marathon times, and keeping track of inventory, but the Seahawks system represents its first use in a sporting venue. Then again, Seahawks Stadium is not a typical venue. Opened in July 2002, the stadium went high-tech from the start, with 200 high-definition televisions, a multimillion-dollar video production studio, high-speed Internet access in all 82 luxury suites, and state-of-the-art video boards designed so that replays can be seen even from the 5-yard line.

The RFID system was added in the stadium's second season, and not all fans use it. So far, it has been installed only in the premium Club Seat sections (7,000 plush seats that surround the field). But that's likely to change, given the system's success.

"It certainly speeds up lines," says Mike Flood, Seahawks vice president for community relations. "And the less wait at the concession, the more incentive there is to buy. We're seeing an uplift in sales, though the final numbers are not in yet."

Smart System Technologies, the company that makes the PowerPay RFID system used in Seattle, says that on the average, RFID sales figures are 18 percent higher than with cash transactions.

By season's end, approximately 40 percent of the eligible patrons had signed up for the PowerPay program. These fans specify the credit cards they want assigned to their accounts. Each one then receives a key fob (featuring the Seahawks logo) that contains a Texas Instruments RFID chip and an antenna. The only information on the chip is an identification number unique to the user.

At the concession stand, the fan simply passes the key fob in front of a PowerPay reader connected to the point-of-sale terminal. The reader produces an electromagnetic field that sends out just enough energy to power up the RFID tag, which sends its ID number to the reader. Because the reader has a range of just a few inches, there's no danger that the key fob in your pocket is going to be charged for the food the guy in front of you just ordered.

Each reader is integrated into Tangent software running the POS terminals. The 52 terminals are linked to a set of servers in the stadium, which take each tag number and pass it to the PowerPay server. That server then sends the number via a broadband VPN to PowerPay's central database in Hoboken, New Jersey.

This proprietary database, built on Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition, matches the number not only with a credit card account but also with specific discounts, rewards, or promotions. This is potentially the real power of the system.

"With PowerPay, the Seahawks can see what fans like to buy and then target them with coupons based on their preferences," says Mark Johnson, the president and CEO of Smart System Technologies. And because the same key fobs can also be used outside Seahawks Stadium, local merchants could partner with the team for promotional campaigns and loyalty programs.

Once the database has located the account information, it's sent back to the PowerPay server in the stadium and shared with the Tangent system, which processes the transaction. While this process may sound like a lot of work, testing at Seahawks Stadium has shown that the average PowerPay transaction takes just 6.5 seconds, compared with 15 seconds for a cash purchase or 37.5 seconds for a traditional transaction using a swiped credit card.

Seahawks fans aren't the only ones who have embraced RFID on the gridiron. The Philadelphia Eagles began using PowerPay in its premium seating area in November, and Johnson says he's in negotiation with more than 2 dozen other NFL clubs. Sure, you'll still be stuck with a $7 beerbut at least you won't be stuck in line.